Tuesday, 1 November 2016

Sunday 30th October

Day 10: Sunday 30th October 2016

Our last day in Sierra Leone was mainly filled with packing and then travelling back home. However, we began with a morning walk along the beach. The beach was much busier than the the day before as virtually ever square inch had been turned into football pitches. The few that did not go for the walk on the beach stayed at the hotel and organised a game of football with some of children staying at the hotel. This was much fun despite the relentless heat.

After having packed up our cases we all went for a much needed pizza in the restaurant next to the hotel and got on the bus for our last journey with Augustin the bus driver. It was rather emotional to see the outline of Freetown as we left by water taxi and waved goodbye to members of the Ballanta academy who had come to bid us farewell. Although we were really sad to be leaving we knew we were all taking some amazing memories back with us and some unforgettable experiences.

We soon arrived at Freetown airport where we had a 3 hour wait before boarding our plane. This was spent drinking cans of coke and exhausting our knowledge of card games. It was then on to Monrovia in Liberia where we stopped for 1 hour before finally departing to Brussels. Almost 7 hours later we zombied our way to another terminal to pass over 4 hours waiting for our final flight back home. Typically, it was delayed by almost an hour and we didn't meet our faithful bus driver, Mrs Tully, till close to 12.00. It was 3.20 before we came to a halt in the stableyard [we also managed to stock up on some high quality junk food en route - BurgerKing or KFC being the only moral options available]. Before we rushed indifferently to familiar faces one final lecture/ warning/ congratulations from Mr Meally and then we were free to be exhausted in whatever fashion we pleased...it had been a hell of a journey or was it a hellish journey that lasted over 24 hours from Water Taxi to WCS-bus- shaped taxi?